Скачать или смотреть Star Clusters | Globular, Open, Embedded and Super Star Cluster

Star Clusters are groups of stars. There are hundreds of star clusters in the Milky Way. There are two major types of clusters: Globular Clusters and Open Clusters.

Globular Star Clusters are tight groups of 100s and 1000s of very old stars, gravitationally bound together. Sometimes even millions of stars like the Omega Centauri (the largest in our galaxy). It's about 150 ly in diameter. It has about 10 million stars, and a mass equivalent to 4 million solar mass. It is about 11.52 billion years old. Globular Clusters commonly consist of very old Population II stars. Such clusters are mostly found in the galactic centre and the galactic halo of our galaxy. There are about 150 globular clusters in the Milky Way. Some galaxies such as the giant Elliptical Galaxy M87 contain over 1000s of them.

Open Star Clusters are very different from globular star clusters. They are confined to the galactic plane and in the spiral arms. There are more than 1,100 of them in our galaxy. They are generally young, except a few. They generally have 100s or 1000s of stars, spanning up to about 30 ly. They are much less densely populated by stars. The Pleiades is a well known open star cluster.

The Open Star Cluster NGC 3572 is encased in an interstellar gas and dust cloud, and hence is an Embedded Star Cluster. Trapezium Cluster in the Orion Nebula is another Embedded Star Cluster. Open clusters form by the collapse of interstellar molecular clouds having mass 1000s of times the solar mass.

[Image] This is a Super Star Cluster within NGC 3603. Super Star Clusters are very massive young open clusters. Such clusters are thought to be the precursors of globular clusters.

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Resources: NASA/ESA, ESO, Wikipedia
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